Da Wang Rao Ming

So, this is my first review so bear with me.

This is actually a really good anime. My only problem was the shitty subs but i guess cant help it. So the story is about a teenager that gets great power suddenly and tries to hide it.

From what i felt, it is mostly a comedy type anime with the main character doing his best to rile people up and being a greedy bastard xD.

So yeah this was very nice to watch, was looking forward to it every week. Also the Opening is sooo good, i didnt skip it once in all the 12 episodes, the ending is good too but the opening is top tier

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Granted, the opening was phenomenal but does the show overall stand up to it? Well... I would say NO. This anime is probably the biggest scam happened to me in 2021.

"Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack." ~ Brandon Sanderson.

Expectations is a huge factor when it comes to entertainment which may or may not move in the direction one expect it to and sometimes severely affect the experience of a viewer. It is an attribute of humans and not something we can just switch on and off whenever we wish to. The difference in a person's judgement between a mediocre show with high acclamation and a well-written show with poor popularity can be quite large. That being said, Da Wang Rao Ming is the donghua (similar to anime but made in China) adaptation of the novel "Spare me, great lord" that got negatively hit due to the factor of expectations rooted from it's eye candy opening.

STORY

You may find difficulty in following the story if you are not a Mandarin speaker since the English subtitles provided were hard to follow. The story revolves around an orphan named Lu Shu who only retains a walnut shaped pendant from his parent. When he gets into a truck accident, his pendant manages to save him, while bestowing him the distress point system in the process. He has an adoptive sister, Lu Xiaoyu who ran away from the orphanage to live with Lu Shu, when he turned 16. Lu Shu has attempted to send her back multiple times, so she could have a better chance at life yet she always escapes and returns to his home. The basic premise of the story is quite simple, a brother and sister trying their best to live their lives their best up until many people starts to awaken abilities which became a turning point in their lives. An organisation called Heavenly Network starts to recruit students who awakened these abilities and trains them to enhance their super powers and one of them being Lu Shu. The power system was confusing and they did not provide a proper explanation on the star systems.

CHARACTERS

Majority of the characters in this donghua lack any sort of depth, no backstories, painful struggles or clear goals, in short they are bland/boring and easily forgettable. The protagonist Lu Shu gains points for his gacha system through negative emotions by annoying/angering people. While the way in which he annoys and collects points from people is pretty entertaining to watch, Lu Shu's growth feels so sudden, without any struggles that this can also be called lazy writing. Even after 12 episodes Lu Shu remains as the same person, the same annoying brat who don't give a fuck about anyone else other than his sister in the first episode, that is zero character development. The chemistry between Lu Shu and Lu Xiaoyu, two poor orphan siblings unrelated by blood supporting each other as they move on was a nice touch. All the side characters lack depth and are just present as tools for Lu Shu to accumulate his points and provide an explanation for his sudden growth. How come Lu Shu is able to master in martial arts so quickly? The answer is the old man Li Xianyi. A scapegoat for his ability awakening? The answer is Liu Li who also serves as the sterotypical bully of the class. Jiang Shuyi is the big brain of the class who provides answer to various questions that arises as the story moves forward but no explanation is given or hinted whatsoever on his source for this immense knowledge on highly secret affairs. Then we have the two teachers, the serious Xifei and the funny Li Yixiao, both just exist in the world with others as tools of interaction with Lu Shu but lacks depth and any sort of personal characteristics. This donghua would have been a lot better if they focused more into the side character's lives, show their daily struggles, their pasts, motivations and goals clearly rather than almost always showing it from Lu Shu's perspective.

COMEDY AND ANIMATION

Comedy is by far the greatest aspect of this donghua aside from it's opening. Comedy is just too dominant that sometimes it even undermines potential dramatic moments. Even though there were a lot of comedic moments, I couldn't enjoy it at it's finest the main culprit being the incompetent subtitles provided and I don't think Tencent would release an official english subs anytime soon. Due to failure of the subtitles to present the dialogues in a comprehendable manner, many potential jokes just went over my head. The opening and ending were both top notch and successful from a marketing point of view but the difference in animation quality between the opening and the show itself is quite large. The motion is disjointed and unfluent as most of the typical donghua.

CONCLUSION

This anime was not enjoyable for me mainly due to my high expectations for it rooted from it's opening and the confusing subtitles. The comedy was great at times and the animation is tolerable if you are familiar with Chinese donghua animations.

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Anime opening is best of Chinese animation, but it doesn't even represent reality, that animation still is not good it is decent compared to some, but op caused me to give it much more expectation.

I personally like song at the beginning and ending, i like use of BGM (Background music) it is not overbearing but it bring certain atmosphere and it works even if you don't notice it, didn't see any short comings with sound design or feel but also it didn't pop out mostly, only in few flashbacks it popped out for me and made me notice it more, but still great sound design.

Story is quite simple for wuxia style story, it has it's own quirks but it also borrows common concepts from other wuxia "system" stories levels, magic weapons, soul sea etc.
for experienced person in wuxia it isn't nothing impressive, but the characters even if simple their dialogue or personality doesn't feel forced, and it is enjoyable as main character does have simple goals on his mind it really doesn't undermine his character, but i can't say for certain as the story seems to presented characters did a bit of development and ended,
i wouldn't say gaining more power is a development of character more of story and as of season 1, can't tell really what is really about it.

I would recommend it to watch, but better option is to wait for second season that is in development, as for now it is decent introduction to itself but doesn't really push the story much and at end can leave you with bit of saltines of ending too soon.

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Lu Shu, an orphan abandoned by his Mother grew up in poverty with an adopted little sister Lu Xiaoyu struggling to gather money for their tuition. However, it all changes when Lu Shu is hit by a truck and dies in an accident. Activating powers passed on from his Mother, Lu Shu is revived and gets granted a Gacha System where he earns points from angering or intimidating people. The points he gathers are used to spin the wheel in hopes of getting a special cultivation fruit, single use healing, body upgrades and more. After awakening his powers and visiting his school Lu Shu notices a suspicious Organization has been recruiting students with awakened abilities for their special academy; He tries to avoid them but to no avail. Lu Shu gets recruited by the Organization who trains the awakened students and teaches them about the world of cultivation; Lu Shu is suspicious given his previous encounters with the Organization but will they reveal their ulterior objectives or will the trust in the people around him betray Lu Shu?

Story & Characters: 7/10
The story itself is much more vast than I expected which resulted in a lot of information being thrown at the viewer within the first 4 episodes, albeit very vaguely and it especially didn't help that there was no official subbing for english upon launch despite it hinting a global release outside of China. In the donghua community we barely get modern day stories that implement a cultivation and modern mannerisms together as well as Da Wang Rao Ming; The main character Lu Shu essentially carried the show because he wasn't your typical blood thirsty no-life cultivation devotee and made it a point to troll/finesse characters that tease(d) his poor upbringing. Furthermore, his companion was an adopted sibling which made the character relationships more interesting since he had a sibling relationship that developed more as he and Lu Xiaoyu discovered their innate talents.

A lot of the criticism of the series that aren't visual are details and story lore that is lost among all other lost/non-utilized details.
At times the smaller details were very hard to avoid such as counting anger points which was done much better in "I annoy millions of cultivators" because at the end of each episode Lu Shu would be in a surplus of unspent points and arbitrarily spend them when needed. In the beginning we see that most of his points go to failed gacha spins and stinky tofu with special attributes but apart from that we rarely see the gacha system utilized especially later in the series. As the series progresses it gets harder to follow because most of the information we are meant to understand is primitively translated/delivered so a lot of detail is missed out especially cultivation bases which is mentioned for 30 seconds in the first 3 episodes and never mentioned again.

Art & Sound: 5/10
Da Wang Rao Ming pre released an opening with rotoscoped animation, abstract color palettes and high energy transitions/effects which set the bar high for anime viewers and drew a lot of first time donghua viewers to the series but it also left a bitter taste of underdelivered expectations. Marketing hype is a gimmick and almost always leads to underdelivered end products such as the recent example of Cyberpunk 2077 with over the top visual teasers, high reputation collaboration and endless day one bugs. Unfortunately, Da Wang Rao Ming is the epitome of Cyberpunk 2077 in anime/donghua terms; For the most part the series was a good watch with consistent character proportions in varying shot sizes, dynamic action choreography and use of CGI. However, in comparison to its opening visuals and high reputation director/staff, this series was an underwhelming experience of a donghua. The art style was typical of any 2D digital donghua but the visual resolution seemed a lot higher than many 2D donghua which kept me watching despite its visual flaws.

The voice acting wasn't the best, there aren't many consistent background music or sound effects and at one point I've heard they re-use audio assets from gaming companies. The opening and ending music is definitely of higher quality and have catchy beats/vocals which kept me attached to each episode beginning to end. Overall, it was average in the audio department but for the next season I would like to see (more) implementation of their ED and OP music in hero-scenes with Lu Shu.

Overall & Enjoyment: 6/10
It's above average in my opinion, not worth the current hype but it is a lot better the more I watch it. Next season, I hope they don't do those marketing gimmicks to hook japanese anime viewers in because it could drop their expectations of donghua and prevent many first time viewers from watching other Chinese productions.

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